Lazy Use of AI Leads To Amazon Products Called 'I Cannot Fulfill That Request' 49
Amazon users are at this point used to search results filled with products that are fraudulent, scams, or quite literally garbage. These days, though, they also may have to pick through obviously shady products, with names like "I'm sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy." From a report: As of press time, some version of that telltale OpenAI error message appears in Amazon products ranging from lawn chairs to office furniture to Chinese religious tracts. A few similarly named products that were available as of this morning have been taken down as word of the listings spreads across social media. Other Amazon product names don't mention OpenAI specifically but feature apparent AI-related error messages, such as "Sorry but I can't generate a response to that request" or "Sorry but I can't provide the information you're looking for," (available in a variety of colors). Sometimes, the product names even highlight the specific reason why the apparent AI-generation request failed, noting that OpenAI can't provide content that "requires using trademarked brand names" or "promotes a specific religious institution" or, in one case, "encourage unethical behavior."
Chinese junk goods. (Score:3)
AIs feeding AIs (Score:2)
Whats wrong with: (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
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Dave isn't a Chinese name.
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Dave isn't a Chinese name.
How long is a Chinese name
Re:Whats wrong with: (Score:5, Funny)
How long is a Chinese name
At least it sounds like one, yes.
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THAT
WAS
FUNNY!
Unfortunately I have 4 broken ribs and the attempt to laugh nearly killed me.
BASTARD!
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Dave's not here, man.
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Actually, it is [theinfosphere.org]. :-D
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If the guy with the clearly Indian accent answering my support call can be "Bob", someone in China can be "Dave".
Re: Whats wrong with: (Score:2)
I take issue with in-band error codes. This is why shell commands return a number instead of simply printing an error message. AI basically isn't up to the same technology level as 1950's batch computing. And it is proof that incredibly intelligent people, people working on cutting edge AI research, can also be pretty dumb.
Or the fraudsters writing automation are bad coders and don't check their work. The classic issue of testing in production.
Amazon destroyed its own reviews system... (Score:5, Informative)
simply by not enforcing its own rules properly and not quickly booting scam companies off the site.
- Bait-and-switching products onto a listing with a ton of reviews? They turn a blind eye.
- Fake reviews with basically no information (like "Yay nice product I loved this")? They turn a blind eye.
- Reviews that clearly demonstrate the company is paying people to write reviews on things they never bought? Blind eye.
Then again they also turn a blind eye to knockoffs and fake products, with listing names that are just keyword lists. [youtube.com] Not as much as the obvious knockoff-seller promotion sites from China like Alibaba and Temu, but still enough of the time that it's a risk these days buying many things from Amazon, not knowing whether you'll get what you really wanted or if you get some cheaply made knockoff.
Re:Amazon destroyed its own reviews system... (Score:4, Interesting)
- Bait-and-switching products onto a listing with a ton of reviews? They turn a blind eye.
This is illegal and the FTC has gone after a couple of US based companies for doing it. But they need to hold the platform accountable for it as well because it's impossible for them to go after the foreign sellers for doing this.
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You claim it's illegal, but it happens all the time [buzzfeednews.com] and Amazon turns a blind eye to it.
The next time you come across an Amazon product with hundreds or thousands of reviews, look closely. You might find some of them are for completely different products. Take this listing for a $10 iPhone charging dock. The top customer review for the product was actually a 2016 comment on a “Culinary Torch” — the sort of tool you use to make crème brûlée. “Great for making the perf
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That was to OP's point, you need to go after Amazon not the individual sellers. Or at least make sure the sellers Bond some cash up front that Amazon keeps if they get fined so they cant just pop up as a new seller.
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Re: Amazon destroyed its own reviews system... (Score:2)
In my opinion, that Amazon sells their own competing brands on their store means they are not simple a neutral third party but should be dragged into every FTC violation made by third party sellers.
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Re: Amazon destroyed its own reviews system... (Score:1)
This has nothing to do with reviews.
At least we can still tell when AI has not read the article.
Re: Amazon destroyed its own reviews system... (Score:2)
Amazon is pretty much just AliExpress US, with accompanying markup. And just like Ali, Searching for stuff on Amazon is generally best done with startpage or ddg.
If you can stand the wait for overseas shipping, just cut out the middlemen and go to Ali directly. You'll get the same shit for basically half price, and you can be equally confident that it's counterfeited with fake reviews.
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simply by not enforcing its own rules properly and not quickly booting scam companies off the site.
- Bait-and-switching products onto a listing with a ton of reviews? They turn a blind eye.
- Fake reviews with basically no information (like "Yay nice product I loved this")? They turn a blind eye.
- Reviews that clearly demonstrate the company is paying people to write reviews on things they never bought? Blind eye.
A while back got a letter in the mail offering me $25 to write a review for an $18 product I'd bought. I would have ignored it, but I'd already written a review so out of curiosity I just sent them a link to that. The next day I got an Amazon gift card code good for $25. In hindsight I'm guessing they got that code in some shady way and I shouldn't have done it, but so far there have been no repercussions.
The review was not bad, but not glowing and not 5 stars. \_()_/
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More generally, Amazon is destroying its value as a seller by acting as a marketplace. They've deliberately made it as difficult as possible to tell the difference between goods sold by Amazon and ones being sold by third parties using their system. That makes it easy for scammers to take advantage of the system. They could try to weed out the scammers, but they won't. They're worried that eliminating scammers could give some company that's less discriminating a chance to break into the market. I get t
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Even worse, Amazon's sidebar where you can select stuff about the product, sometimes you select "made of [material]" and get products described as "contains no [material]". Great job dumbasses, really inspires confidence.
Placeholders (Score:5, Informative)
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Let me propose an alternate reason for these listings: they are trying to automate the process of creating fraudulent listings, and their automation scripts aren't perfect and up-to-date with all the different APIs and updates. When you auto-generate 1000 listings you might not check them all by hand, the whole point f automating the system is to NOT be doing this stuff by hand.
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Also, what is fraudulent about them exactly? Who's making fraudulent product listings for deck furniture. If you are going to do that, you would target high-demand items, or just do like everyone
The Amazon spammer has it backwards (Score:1)
We do not need AI in a brain-dead script that prints error messages.
We need AI checking our formerly brain-dead scripts and flagging errors so we can look at them if we want to, while not blocking us with unskippable demands for corrections.
Speaking if which, I wonder if AI can let me test parts of code even if the whole thing does not compile?
Re: Lazy use of the word "A.I." leads to... (Score:2)
We're going to have to accept that journalist dropped the ball on this one, as they typically do with science and technology reporting.
It's like the reverse Chinese tattoo problem. (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how many people run around with the Chinese version of "page not found" tattooed permanently into their skin.
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I wonder how many people run around with the Chinese version of "page not found" tattooed permanently into their skin.
Okay, it's true - but I did it ironically, I swear.
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I wonder how many people run around with the Chinese version of "page not found" tattooed permanently into their skin.
Reminds me of the Beijing Olympics. Many shops in Beijing decided to try and cater for a massive influx of foreigners and update their signage. Quite a few people were perplexed at how many restaurants in Beijing were called "Translation Server Error".
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That may not be quite what you think. Yeah, it may be. But....
A decade or so ago my wife told me a story about a guy she knew who visited Japan. In the middle of the trip, he decided to get his laundry done. So he went to a place with a sign that said "LAUNDRY" (I'm not sure about the font or capitalization) and parked his laundry there. When he came back, he was charged a fee to reclaim his still dirty laundry. After a few back and forths (I'm assuming a translator was involved) it turned out that
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That may not be quite what you think. Yeah, it may be. But....
Hahah funny as your story is, no these were definitely suddenly trying to cater to an influx of English tourists to Beijing. At around the time of the games there was a webblog dedicated to documenting all the instances. It was hilarious.
That said your Chinese example is definitely a thing. There are a lot of companies that throw signs, slogans, and anything up for looks without a care as to what is actually said. I have several shirts with nonsense english written on them for that very reason, they just ne
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Reminds me of the story on how Mr. Prawo Jazdy got a LOAD of driving citations and fines in Ireland for his horrible, horrible driving. How he didn't lose his driving license is a mystery.
As an AI language model... (Score:3)
... I feel personally attacked.
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If I was Amazon, I would auto ban on the phrase. (Score:2)
If I was Amazon I would actually set it up so that any time somebody tried to fill out a product description and it included that phrase, it would simply mark the account as fraudulent and close it.
The code would simply be a string dot contains call and it would. be as simple as an if statement that acts when the form is posted to check if this is the case; Since it's clearly an error message that's meant to be used as a form of DRM and identify the use of OpenAI and as such nobody has a legitimate reason t
Wrong takeaway in TFA comments section. (Score:2)
Re: Wrong takeaway in TFA comments section. (Score:2)
Well the tech is also a pox. That we see it blowing up in a scammer's face is an amusing diversion.
Spammers (Score:2)
Like most of the wannabe hackers, who can't be bothered to read the instructions and fill in stuff, like names, etc.
What?! (Score:2)